Now On-Sale at MillsBrewing.com
Saison Hallertau & Tiny Islay
Saison Hallertau
A bitter, amber saison with a good balance of malt, yeast and hop flavour.
This iteration was made from a blend of two barrels from two worts, brewed in Spring and Autumn 2024. We used single infusion mashes to produce fermentable worts, resulting in dry finished beers. The grists contained well toasted Munich malts to give a rich malty flavour, without too much sweetness. A sizeable addition of bitter high alpha-acid hops was made at the start of the boil, followed by a blend of delicately aromatic Hallertau-grown noble hop varieties towards the end of the boil.
The spontaneous fermentations took place in old white Burgundy barrels made from French oak. The initial cool fermentation and heavy hopping favours the wild yeast over the lactic acid bacteria, while the relatively short (sub two years) time in barrel limits the opportunity for acetic acid production. Together this leads to a more restrained acidity in the final beer.
The barrels were selected for their clean aromatics, snappy dry finishes, and crystal clear malty flavours. The blend was dry-hopped with whole leaf hops from the Hallertau region of Bavaria.
Finally, as with all our releases, the beer was naturally conditioned in-bottle to produce fine carbonation.
Tiny Islay
A session strength version of Islay Brut, our peat-smoke Champagne beer. Referred to in-house as "the beer no-one was asking for."
The first blend came about as many of our beers do, by tasting barrels, and being led by the flavours which are presented to us. The original idea for this beer emerged at that point, in May 2020, and was released the following spring after a year long refermentation in tank and bottle. We liked the result so much that we have been looking out for suitable barrels for further attempts ever since.
Tiny Islay is a single barrel release, brewed in March 2023. The wort was produced from a traditional turbid mash with a decent quantity of maize, giving a more delicate flavour and paler colour than malted barley. Continued in comments...
Now On-Sale at MillsBrewing.com
Aceh & Old Grisette
Aceh
Our second time releasing a coffee beer after our first foray in 2024's Angucho. Aceh is a single barrel bottling of golden beer, brewed in November 2022. The wort was made using a turbid mash, including an inadvisable quantity of caramelised barley malt and aged hops.
We initially set about selecting a coffee that we thought would best marry with our beer, before delving into the barrels to find its partner. After extensive tasting round the cellar, a barrel was selected to complement the addition of an Indonesian coffee from the Aceh region of north Sumatra, made using an anaerobic honey fermentation process.
The coffee fermenting naturally on one side of the world, while our beer fermented naturally on the other, destined to meet in a French-made glass bottle under a Portuguese cork...
The whole beans were steeped in the beer for just a few hours before filling into bottles for one further fermentation. The finished beer has been darkened to amber by the coffee. It has been endowed with a mix of tropical fruit, floral and dark sugar notes from the coffee. On the palate, it is relatively full for the ABV, thanks to the large dose of caramal malts. Which is cut by a firm acidity which carries the coffee's natural funk.
The coffee was sourced and roasted half a mile from our brewery by @noniscoffeeroasters .
Cheers,
Gen and Jonny Mills
Now On-Sale at MillsBrewing.com
Old Grisette & Aceh
Old Grisette
Made from a blend of six year old NZ hopped saison with a four year old golden beer made with aged hops and caramelised wheat. This breaks our record for the oldest barrel of beer we have included in a blend.
The slow spontaneous fermentations took place in an old white Burgundy barrique and a fresh Herefordshire cider barrel. The two barrels were quite distinct from each other. One remarkably fresh and zesty, with plenty of hop bite. The other bringing juicy acidity and complex earthy aromatics. Together they strike a delightful balance on the palate and an inviting excuse to bring in some new season hops to add some punch to the aromatics.
The blend was dry hopped with whole leaf US grown Cashmere from the 2025 harvest that was absolutely singing in the hop bags. They have added rhubarb, lime, and a touch of something coconut-like to create one of the most potently aromatic beers we have ever released.
March Trade Mailer Family Photo.
Bitter lager with added spontaneously fermented barrel beer : Theremin Pilsner @thereminbeer
Uncarbonated, single barrel 3 yo spontaneously fermented : Still
Wild, barrel finished oat pils : Mills Pils
Golden strong blended with spontaneous beer : The Dickens
Straight from the barrel to you.
The closest you can get to tasting three year old spontaneously fermented beer straight from the barrel:
Still
Now On-Sale MillsBrewing.com
This is our fourth chance to release Still after finding another barrel that has enough character and the right balance to exist as a great finished drink, without the need for carbonation.
Still is a single-barrel bottling of three year old beer. The wort was made in January 2023 from a turbid mash using Maris Otter and rye malt, to give both texture and aromatic interest. The wort underwent an extended boil with large quantities of aged hops, before being held for two nights in our coolship for a double innoculation. The resulting spontaneous fermentation took place in a single ancient 350 litre barrel, and was left to mature for three years.
The resulting beer was bottled without the usual priming sugar (so no carbonation was produced) and given time to rest in bottle before release. The finished beer displays an elegant balance of acidity, oak tannin and hop bitterness. The silky texture of the rye allowed to shine without the prickle of carbonic acid.
Cheers,
Gen and Jonny Mills
The Dickens
A little extra release before the final winter sale next Friday (that beer to be announced):
Now on-sale at millsbrewing.com - £6.5 per bottle (330 ml) - 8.4% ABV
Beer Details:
The Dickens is our take on one of Jonny's favourites, the Belgian Golden Strong. An effervescent, heady, pale, dry, and lightly bitter beer that remains delicate and balanced despite its considerable strength.
A clear wort was drawn from an infusion mash of pilsner malt and spelt. Large quantities of European hops and cane sugar were added during the boil.
Fermentation took place in our open coolship at warm ambient summer temperatures. The young beer maturated in large oak casks with wild yeast and bacteria until the winter. Finally, the beer is dry-hopped with whole-leaf hops and bottle conditioned for several months before release.
Cheers,
Gen and Jonny Mills
Now On-Sale at MillsBrewing.com
Today XO & Mills Pils
Today XO
A blend of barrels aged for three years or more. It is one of the two beers we originally set out to make when planning the brewery (along with our rye-malt and American oak leaning Running Beer). It is about the purest expression of what Mills Brewing is and the closet we come to making a G***ze.
The blend for this fifth iteration of Today XO was made from worts produced in January 2022, using traditional turbid mash methods. The non-traditional grists contained barley, oats, maize, and wheat in varying proportions. We change the recipe every brew to give us a range of blending options when we come to construct the final beer. An extra large quantity of aged hops were added to each boil to preserve the beer over the extended ageing in barrel.
The worts were left in our coolship for two nights to be double-inoculated with wild yeast and bacteria, before fermenting in small and large neutral oak barrels. The beer age at bottling was 44 months. The resulting beer was conditioned in bottle for a further five months prior to release.
The beer is dry with balancing bitterness, juicy acidity and a pleasingly snappy astringency from the large hop addition. The nose is delicate with herbal, citrus, nutty, and woody notes.
Pils
Brewed solely in the depths of a Gloucestershire winter, working with the cold weather to aid an ambient-temperature lager yeast driven primary fermentation in our open coolship.
The pale wort is made from barley, oats, and whole-leaf European hops.
After around ten days open fermentation in our coolship, the young beer is transfered to large oak casks for a secondary fermentation and lagering period with our indigenous wild yeast and bacteria, until warmer months. The long winter lagering naturally clarifies the beer as is matures.
Finally, the beer is dry-hopped with whole-leaf hops and bottle conditioned for several months before release. The beer is packaged in heavyweight 330 ml amber bottles.
This batch of Pils underwent primary fermentation in December 2024 and was bottled in November 2025.
Cheers!
Gen & Jonny
Dirt & Big
Monosyllabic Beers On-Sale Now at MillsBrewing.com
Dirt
Dirt is our spontaneously fermented take on the red-brown beers of Flanders, such as the famed beers of Rodenbach.
Classically, these beers are not made with spontaneous fermentation, but with an initial ale yeast fermentation, followed by extensive oak ageing with lactic and acetic acid producing bacteria. Dirt's spontaneous fermentation and ensuing long maturation on the gross lees is more akin to the lambic producers of the Senne Valley. So this beer sits, production and flavour -wise, somewhere between those two great brewing traditions.
This second blend comes seven years after our first. The grists consisted of malted and flaked barley, rye, and a large addition of crystal malt. Twelve year old Citra hops were add during a long boil. The resulting beer is a blend of two and three year old beers fermented and matured in old White Burgundy barrels.
With little hop character or bitterness, the key for this beer was to find a fine balance between the rich sweet malts, with the acidity of the fermentation. The correct balance of lactic and acetic acid is critical and is one of the reasons it has taken so long to release a second batch of this beer.
Big
Big is highly aromatic strong beer taken from young barrel stock. The combination of high gravity pale worts, large additions of aromatic hops, and relatively short time in barrel (less than two years), has become a recent point of interest for us, with releases such as Resin and Flor over the last few years being new favourites of ours.
The grists contained floor malted Maris Otter, rye, and wheat. A mixture of US-grown Columbus, Sorachi Ace, and Citra hops were used during the boil. A large dose of cane sugar was used to increase the gravity of each wort prior to fermentation. The beers spontaneously fermented in old French oak barrels for eighteen months before blending and carbonating naturally in-bottle.
Richly aromatic and heady, initially light and fresh on the palette, with rolling carbonation, followed by a somewhat sweeter finish and a tug of bitterness.
Cheers,
Gen and Jonny Mills
